


October Prompts

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball, ROBOT x LASERBEAM (Manga), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-07-23 06:14:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 10,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16153283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: A set of mostly-unrelated short works. Supposed to be creepy, but only some of them are. Warnings on a per-chapter basis.





	1. Infestation (muraaka)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justlikeswitchblades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikeswitchblades/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to Val for making this list and sending it to me! Sorry it took me so long to fill <3<3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings are spoilery; see the end

Atsushi smells the rotting, faint at first. A mouse that died in the neighbor’s wall, trash wafting in on the summer air, the things his mother always used to tell him about his teeth if he kept eating so much candy. Like something, somewhere, is beginning to decay, like a block of cheese left out on the counter before they’d left for vacation.

Seijuurou’s stomach moves at night, while he’s sleeping, not in the gradual up-down-up that it should. Like there’s something crawling under there, but Atsushi lifts his pajama top to find nothing underneath. It’s strange, perhaps, but isn’t everything strange with Seijuurou? At night, though, the rotting smell grows stronger, and sometimes Atsushi wakes up with a clogged throat and the sensation of being trapped between two dumpsters. Seijuurou never says anything; he doesn’t seem to notice. 

It’s not the smell that wakes Atsushi but the sound of ripping, like the seam of a too-well-worn pair of pants. Seijuurou’s flesh, but there’s no blood, only tiny white worms, maggots crawling out of the muscle and organs, the flesh rotting from the inside, like a sunken jack-o-lantern left on a porch. The smell isn’t what woke him, but it’s impossible to ignore, the rancid meat barely clinging to the bones of Seijuurou’s rib cage. The maggots are spilling over, like a swarm into the tangle of sheets; Seijuurou stares down.

“Oh.”

His organs are fluttering, slow, striving to perform their functions still, as half-rotten as they are. Admirable, the forest that will soon succumb to the fire. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> insects, body horror


	2. Core (himualex)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clam people (potential body horror)

Tatsuya’s not expecting Alex to split open when she does. He’s used to her retracting, burrowing down into the sand, her head and hands coming out of her shell at odd angles until he gets used to them, maneuvering around them, the shape of her body, the hard and the softer than soft. It’s like her shoulders popped her shell all the way, made it strain too much with her width. She lies, unmoving, her neck tilted back as if  boneless. The underexposed flesh of her breasts, stomach, hips, upper legs, the core of her, is pale. Tatsuya reaches out to feel her heartbeat; she’s so soft to the touch. The slime that forms on her spine is spread in a pool around her, and she smells like the ocean. 

Her hinges aren’t broken, but her heart is beating wildly; he can feel the too fast and too irregular swish of her pulse no matter where he touches her. Too much open air like this is bad for her; her eyes flutter open and she struggles to sit up.

“Hey,” says Tatsuya; his voice is softer than he means to make it.

“Hey,” Alex echoes. Her voice is hoarse, scattered like a bent piece of tape tangling in the player. “Can you close me?”

He nods; his hands are already coming around to the other side of her shell as she folds herself up again, the soles of her feet bumping against the slope of the bottom shell. There’s nothing to grab onto on the inside, really, but Alex manages it; Tatsuya hears her groan as he pushes, trying to harness whatever torque he can. 

A few minutes after she’s closed up again, a hand reaches out to squeeze his. 


	3. No Signal (kagahimu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> android au

Every week, Taiga tries again. He reaches up under Tatsuya’s shirt, tries not to feel like he’s violating his space, his trust, his cold skin a good enough facsimile of flesh even now, a few gentle presses, and behind one nipple his plug comes out. Behind the other, the antenna, unfolding, and Taiga tries not to think about Tatsuya, lying in bed next to him and scanning for service, laughing at how absurd it is, the smile lifting his face. 

If androids aren’t real people, then who is a real person? Tatsuya had been real, is still real. Who decides what’s consciousness, whether artificial intelligence is inherently unequal to that of humans or not? Taiga’s not qualified to make sweeping generalizations, but even if the general rule is a certain way Tatsuya’s the exception. 

In the low light, the spark as he plugs Tatsuya into the outlet is visible. A moment later, he hears the hum of a processor. He turns over Tatsuya’s palm in his. There’s no light, no connection to the satellite. Nothing to wake him back up. His hand is warm; Taiga slips his fingers between Tatsuya’s and closes his eyes. When he opens them again Tatsuya hasn’t moved.


	4. Bruises (nijihimu)

Shuuzou had learned, once, the scientific definition of a bruise. That was a long time ago, and he’s not sure now if it had something to do with blood vessels bursting or a tear underneath the skin, a body about to rip itself open from the inside, bones and muscles that just want to be free of confinement. It’s hard not to think about it when he sees the bruises all over Tatsuya’s body, fading quickly but still in various states of black and blue and red and yellow. 

He wants to say, don’t fight, but the words catch on his tongue, as if it too should be bruised, tender and swollen and catching on his tongue hard enough to make him wince and bite down. Instead he swallows it back down and it burns his throat, but Tatsuya hears it anyway. His eye narrows; Shuuzou tries not to look at the black-yellow smear on the inside of his arm but his gaze drifts over anyway. 

“Shuu,” says Tatsuya, and there’s a bite to it, but not the snapping turtle snatch-your-fingers kind. It’s a tired clamping down of his jaw, and Shuuzou drops the subject.


	5. Protrusion (youzaku)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> body horror

“If I didn’t enjoy your golf so much, I might think it was a shame you gave up kendo,” says Suzaku. 

Yousan glances up from where he’s crouched on the floor, trying to pull his sword out of where it’s skewered in their latest victim. Her guts are spilling out through the hole; blood and fat cells have soaked and oversaturated the front of her t-shirt. Youzan yanks and the sword comes out, covered in the sticky red-brown of oxidizing blood. Youzan’s white golf gloves are still pristine, though blood has spattered near the bottoms of his khakis. The getaway black car should have an extra pair, but there’s a lot of extra room in the backseat and the driver knows how to be discreet.

“We have to get you out of those,” Suzaku says.

Youzan ignores him. The sword is wet but not dripping; it won’t leave a trail back to the car. Youzan’s eyes are dark, still, fueled by the kill. A fly lands on the body, moving toward the hole, the protruding innards. The sword is steady in Youzan’s hand.


	6. Wither (kagahimu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plant people

“It’s okay,” Tatsuya says. 

His voice is dry, crackling like an empty foil packet, like the leaves that have fallen from his branches. The bark on his face is peeling again, and any green on his body has shriveled, withering and drying out in the heat. His body is stooped, parched; Taiga wonders, for a second (an intrusive thought careening in like a car spun out through a barrier) if his roots would crack if Taiga were to touch them under the soil. He’s shaking his head; Tatsuya reaches out with one branch. It’s heavy against Taiga’s shoulder; it creaks as it moves. Another leaf falls off, its connection to his body severed by the slight wind.

“Tatsuya,” Taiga says.

His voice is breaking, not like Tatsuya’s is, like ripping rather than crumpling.

“It’s okay,” Tatsuya says, his voice softer now, like wind through his sparse leaves. 


	7. Don't Look Back (kagahimu)

Taiga’s heard this story before, a few times; don’t look back. You lose him when you do, like that Greek myth about the guy with the flute coming out of the underworld. This is different. Yes, they are crossing over, moving ahead; yes, he can’t look back. But the urgency is different; this is not about singing the perfect song. It’s about Tatsuya’s face cast in shadow, the Tatsuya he was not sure for a second was really him. The doubt lurking beneath the surface. Why shouldn’t he believe? What reason does he have not to? This is Tatsuya’s hand in his; it feels right. And Tatsuya’s the cynic; the pessimist, the nonbeliever.

He wants to; he should. He needs to look back, to cast the malevolence lurking beneath the surface aside for good. But they said not to look back. Tatsuya says nothing, and Taiga has not heard his voice. What if it’s--no. That’s not a thought he’ll entertain.

Perhaps he should, just a quick glance. That’s what killed that mythology person’s wife, but this is different. Taiga wipes the sweat from his face, turns his head around. The blood splits Tatsuya’s face, a line, a crack growing. A fissure, the San Andreas. The blood, bubbling from the sides of his mouth, as if it’s been carbonated. His lips part, as if to say Taiga’s name, but the blood is drying; his skin is flaking away, and the image commits itself to Taiga’s memory permanently, data that can only be written once. A disk that will most likely one day crack, like Tatsuya’s face. Like Tatsuya’s body, falling to a pile of dust that dissipates in the wind, the ghosts of his fingers imprinted between Taiga's.


	8. Flickering Lights (muraaka)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gore

The lights here flicker like Akashi’s eyes. It’s not an observation Murasakibara would make out loud, though not because of how Akashi would react. It’s because then Akashi would have that thought, and Murasakibara’s no pushover. Akashi can take from him, in these flickering lights, make himself believe that Murasakibara belongs to him completely. Bone, muscle, flesh, blood. Stitches ripped away after he’s been sewn back up with a steady hand. 

Akashi believes he’s privy to everything else, and perhaps he sees the future. Perhaps he’s on another plane; Murasakibara trusts that the answer of yes or no, the result of opening the box and peering inside, is irrelevant. It has been before; he has simply trusted in the way Akashi moves forward. But what Murasakibara thinks has no effect on the outcome, the physical future. Perhaps some result of it does, the way he acts or the way Akashi acts in anticipation, but perhaps even the action is irrelevant (either way, Akashi is prepared). 

The lights flicker, and Akashi’s hands are steady on the scalpel. Murasakibara’s eyes remain steady on the line of blood, and he does not move at the sound of breaking flesh, at the sight and feel of the cold metal down through him.


	9. Anasthetic (aohimu)

It’s hard to speak when your mind feels like it’s been coated several times in anesthetic, when it’s seeping in with no way out. When your mouth feels the same, novocaine shots all around your lips and chin and teeth, so that you’d be able to hear each tooth ripped from your mouth but not truly feel it. Tatsuya can’t feel his arm, but perhaps it’s no longer there. He closes his eyes without a problem, but through the slow fog he hears a noise.

His name, though it takes time--seconds? Minutes?--to let that register, for the neurons to fire like a gun straight into a bog, the bullet dragged down slowly enough for the path behind it to close up immediately. He nods, or maybe he doesn’t. Nods again, moves his leg.

“You’re okay.”

This is something said to comfort him, or perhaps the person speaking. Who is speaking? He should be angry; this is patronizing. But it’s as if he’s worlds away, seeing this in the third person, in the past. It’s Daiki, isn’t it? He still knows the voice. Tatsuya hopes that however this is, however he was made to be in this condition, that his arm isn’t twisted and bleeding in a way that Daiki can’t stand, that his body won’t rot away to nothing in the middle of--wherever they are.

“I’m sorry.”

Tatsuya’s mouth is still too fucked up to ask what for.


	10. Folk Tale (anidala)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rapunzel au, canon-typical violence
> 
> see the end for spoilery warnings

A long time ago on the planet of Naboo there lived a husband and wife who longed for another child. Though their life was free from other stress, they could not conceive, though they trusted the Force and whichever other higher powers existed. Finally, the wife became pregnant again, and her husband was so overjoyed that he promised he would do anything for her.

Next to their house was the villa of Senator Palpatine, one of the most powerful beings on the planet. However, he was frequently away on Coruscant, though the threat of his return deterred anyone who would dare enter his garden and steal one of his luscious plants. Next to the couple’s window, however, grew Palpatine’s lotus plants, and the wife loved lotus roots. 

“Please, Darling, could you pick me some of those? The senator has just gone for a session of the Galactic Senate.”

And despite his fear, the husband was so worried about his wife’s pregnancy that he acquiesced. He stole a small lotus plant, one that Palpatine would surely not miss, and from that made his wife several delicious meals.

When the lotus ran out, however, he decided to go get more, but while he was digging in the garden he felt a presence behind him. It was the senator, and behind his kindly appearance the husband sensed something far more sinister.

“Sir! I am so sorry! I was only gathering lotus for my wife. She is pregnant and it has been so hard to conceive, and your lotus is so tempting for her.”

Palpatine leered at him. “You may have the lotus, with no consequence, except that I will take your child when it is born.”

Cowering, the husband agreed to it. His wife made arrangements to leave the city and give birth in secret, but she did not anticipate the baby coming early, nor did she anticipate Palpatine’s presence at her bedside. She felt she could not sleep, clutching her baby to her breast, but something passed over her consciousness and she fell into slumber. When she awoke, Palpatine and the baby were gone.

Palpatine spirited the baby away to Tatooine, for as a powerful dark lord of the Sith he could go anywhere. He named her Padmé, after the plant her mother so coveted, and kept her in a high sand tower in the middle of the desert. A window at the top was the only way in or out, and gradually Padmé’s hair grew long enough for Palpatine to climb it to the top rather than levitate himself. 

Padmé, however, grew bored. She would ask on occasion why Palpatine never let her out, and he would always reply that it was to protect her from the evils of the world. All Padmé could see out the window was sand, however, and that didn’t seem particularly evil to her. Occasionally, she would see a person or a creature, but whenever she asked about them Palpatine grew angry. 

One day, she was singing and combing her hair when a young Jedi knight’s speeder broke down. He got off and began to fixed it but was transfixed by her beautiful voice. After fixing the speeder, he placed the coordinates of the tower in his positioning system and vowed to return to understand the source.

He would come by occasionally, hiding behind dunes and listening, until by chance he saw Palpatine come by.

“Padmé, let down your hair!” he croaked, and Padmé’s hair unfurled from the top of the tower. 

The Jedi waited for hours, but neither Padmé nor Palpatine came out of the tower. The next time he returned, though, he had a plan.

“Padmé, let down your hair!” he called, and Padmé’s hair unfurled. 

Climbing it was difficult against the crumbling walls of the sandy tower, but he managed it, until finally he was at the top of the tower, where he came face to face with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He was still tangled in her hair, and she moved as if to tighten it around his neck.

“Who are you, Monster?”

“Monster? I’m a person. My name is Anakin.”

She frowned at him, did not tighten the hair but did not release it from her grip.

“Are you an angel?” he asked.

“An angel?”

“The most beautiful creatures in the universe.”

She frowned again, as if unused to this kind of compliment. 

“I’m sorry,” said Anakin. “I heard your singing, and I had to see you, so--I.”

She still looked as if she did not trust him, but when he extended a hand she took it.

* * *

Anakin came by as often as he could, telling Padmé stories of his travels and the galaxy around him. Soon, they fell in love, and soon, Padmé became sick. She awoke every morning feeling nauseous, and soon her stomach began to swell. She could not hide it when she looked in the mirror, and when Palpatine came home he was displeased.

“Foolish girl. You thought you could hide this from me? Everything has transpired according to my design, and soon young Skywalker will die.”

Before Padmé could comprehend this, Palpatine drew his lightsaber and cut off her hair, and then he threw her off the top of the tower. She fell down into the coarseness of the sand, and something compelled her to wander very far. She grew lost among the dunes, thirsty, and finally fainted.

Anakin had been away on a mission, and he took the first opportunity possible to return to Padmé’s side. Eagerly, he called out to her to let down her hair, and it came down. He ascended the tower, but at the top was greeted by Palpatine, who was smiling kindly at him.

“Chancellor?”

“Young Skywalker.”

“Where is Padmé? Is she safe?”

“It seems that you have killed her,” said Palpatine. “You left her adrift, and when I came back it was far too late. She had already thrown herself off the tower.”

Anakin stared at him in disbelief. Palpatine raised his arms, and Anakin did nothing, and then Palpatine blasted him with lightning from the Force, throwing him out of the window. The sand had turned to lava at the base of the tower when he landed, only turning back once he was up in flames. Palpatine cackled, and then blasted through the roof of the tower in his escape pod. He no longer needed it.

Anakin had been in such a hurry to see Padmé that he had brought his droid R2-D2, who dragged his burning body to safety and piloted the speeder back home. There was not much to be done, but perhaps they could save him.

Anakin’s extremities were unsalvageable, but he was built new ones; his body was charred, but he was given treatments; he had inhaled a great deal of smoke, but he was built a life-support system. He felt only agony, the agony of physical pain and the agony of losing Padmé, though he was determined to find her.

Anakin set off across the desert alone. Grains of sand wedged themselves in between his artificial limbs, and walking grew hard, but Anakin walked faster. The heat was brutal on his black outfit, but he kept going. Traversing the dunes, calling out Padmeé’s name in his voice, now rougher than all the planet’s sands combined. She would not recognize him were she to see him, would she?

He had lost track of time, days and weeks and months, when he came across a large Jawa craft. Full of droids to sell, perhaps Jawas who had seen Padmé, or heard about her. The door slowly opened, and that was when he saw her. Padme, a baby in each arm, expression still just as mesmerizingly beautiful.

“Padmé,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Ani?” she cried, and rushed into his arms, knowing him immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obviously their canon relationship is not this happy/healthy


	11. Tresspasser (haizaki & teikou)

When Haizaki Shougo is fourteen years old, he disappears. To say it like that is to paint it as a disruption, a clean break, a jump-cut in a movie or a skipping record on a turntable, and it’s like that a little. It’s only like that for Shougo, a moment when his life had been his, and the moment after that, when he’d become a trespasser in someone else’s story, the main character written out of a television show.

He’s never been the main character type, and he’s never had things clearly delineated as his; he’s always had to take and take and ignore as they slap his hands away. But he is still there; he is still eating at the same table as they are, until Akashi looks at him like that, and suddenly, he is not tolerated at all. And then he’s not there at all. 

It’s as if things were written around him. His mother and brother don’t seem to notice there was ever a third member of the household, even though Shougo’s things are still strewn around the living room and his half of the bedroom. He walks through the door when it’s his night to cook and he doesn’t recognize the setup, the strange man his mother’s brought over. He tries to knock his brother’s water glass over on the table but the air doesn’t even flutter around it.

Akashi sees him; he never says anything (thinks a perfect rich fucker like him’s too good for Shougo, the way he always had, thinks he’s even too good for the coaches and Murasakibara and Midorima and Nijimura even if he pretends to respect them, shit polished with a veneer of politeness is still shit). 

“I didn’t want to be in your stupid basketball club anyway,” says Shougo. 

Akashi’s already left the room. It’s empty, and the air is still, and it still does not belong to him at all. But they’ll have to do better than this if they want him gone.


	12. Needle and Thread (tatsuya)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> body horror/stitches

When Tatsuya was young, his mother did embroidery. He’d stare, transfixed, at the rhythm in which she’d stabbed the fabric, sometimes gentle and smooth, but always clearing a hole in which the thread would follow. The sound of pricking wove its way around his dreams, until it didn’t anymore, replaced by squeaking sneakers, basketball on asphalt, cars in the night and their thudding bass, his parents’ keys on their computers, doing work and emailing friends back home. 

Tatsuya hasn’t forgotten it, though. It’s why it would be so easy to get a tattoo, stick millions of needles into his arm, or just slash it open carelessly. It would be easy to burn his flesh, make it hurt, run metal piercings through his skin. Hold it close to the flame on a cigarette, let it drag on the wall when he falls, on the turf of the school soccer field when he plays a pickup game, lie on it until it feels numb. 

But that would not satisfy him; what Tatsuya wants is not a scar, a marking, an accessory; the effect is beside the point. The sound, the sensation of a needle and thread through his skin, the pierce and prick, the tiniest rip, thread taut against his skin, underneath. Tatsuya bites his tongue and squeezes his eyes shut. He pinches his fingers around an invisible needle, thumbs down below the eye to smooth the thread. Tracing a pattern of what he’d like (cross stitch, satin stitch, rows of lightning bolts), he falls asleep. Today, a thought, tomorrow, the smell of blood on a needle, white thread stained red-brown, the rhythm of his dreams brought back into the waking world. 


	13. Shadows (akashi & mayuzumi)

The first time he meets Akashi, Mayuzumi still blends into the wall. There is not enough light for him to stand defined; his skin is muddy and he bleeds out into the darkness quite often. He always comes back, the sharp click of a lamp or a particularly sunny day, a click of connection between a few particularly annoying underclassmen.

But Akashi is light, the rosy tint of his fingertips and the starry red tint of his hair, the brightness of his perfect teeth and most of all the light that bleeds through his eye. Mayuzumi breaths in, sharp; his entire body sharpens. The blurred edges of his skin are more closely-defined; his organs feel heavy and his feet are flat on the ground. The brighter the light, the clearer the shadow, the sharper and brighter the shadow become. The more light there is, the less the shadow fades away--it's not quite irony; Mayuzumi knows his literary devices, thank you very much.

Akashi passes to him and the ball is like a beam of light; once it touches him its contagion burns. Mayuzumi rises into a jumper, like the shadow of a basketball player in a particular logo. But he has never felt more colorful, more three-dimensional. Nebuya slaps his back and the weight reverberates, less like a bullet through water than a sounding snare drum. And Akashi just keeps growing brighter, the light in his eye shining through all the cracks around it in his face.

He is luminous, and Mayuzumi's eyes hurt when he looks. But he can't look away, stupidly masochistic as that is; he can't stop becoming defined by this light. He grows sharper; the basketball nearly glances off the points of his finger. Seirin's players make passive-aggressive sounds with their voices, and Akashi grows more on edge. Something will happen; it's bound to crack. Stars glow brightest before they burn out, and Akashi's eye leaves behind only a dull red. Akashi is someone else, but Mayuzumi's skin slices through paper.


	14. Memory (kikuro)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied body horror

“How did you get here, Kise-kun?” says Kuroko.

Kise’s mouth opens, but the words don’t come tumbling out before he can think; there’s no memory with a link to Kise’s mouth like a chain. There’s no tongue in Kise’s mouth, no way to form consonants with his voice, the seamless way he’s used to. He tries to wave it, tries to mouth what he’s saying, but there’s nothing. He doesn’t remember getting here; he doesn’t remember being here, or what here is. He tries to mouth that, but Kuroko looks back, passive, eyes like dull sea glass.

Something moves in the periphery of Kise’s vision; he tries to look down. He can’t see what it is; something is pressing into him. It must be Kuroko, he thinks, but he looks back at Kuroko. He doesn’t seem to have moved. Kise’s eyes flutter shut.

* * *

“How did you get here, Kise-kun?” says Kuroko.

Kise wants to ask, didn’t Kuroko already ask him. He can’t feel his tongue; he’s not sure he even has a tongue any longer. He tries to move it; his mouth is too heavy. He can’t open his mouth, as if something is forcing his lips together.

“Please don’t strain. I’d like to keep you awake for longer.”

Why does he ask questions if he doesn’t want Kise to answer? Kuroko isn’t that kind of maddening, not usually. He is the one who doesn’t answer Kise’s questions, like where is here and what is he doing. Has Kise asked those questions? He can’t remember. His lips strain against something that feels like wire, torn into his skin. Kuroko tells him not to strain again, or perhaps it’s his memory of Kuroko saying that and the real Kuroko pressing a needle into his side.

* * *

“How did you get here, Kise-kun?” says Kuroko.

Kise cannot see him. He feels sick, as if he’s about to vomit; he can’t breathe. Does he have a mouth? He can feel his teeth against his cheeks. Air comes in and out his nose; his mouth is muffled by something he can’t feel. He thinks Kuroko has already asked him this question. He wants to heave; does he have a stomach? What is he? 

He remembers nothing.


	15. Maze (garciraki)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theseus au
> 
> spoiler warnings @ end

Alex drops the ball of yarn; she feels the dust spring up from the floor. Feeling around her feet, she cannot find the thread; she cannot find the telltale fiber. Her heart stops, then jumps, erratic, like a firefly caught in a jar. She could not see it even if it were much lighter, even if she had a torch or a way of destroying the ceiling.

She does not remember which direction she had faced, or where she is going. 

The heavy thud of hooves like metal on stone approaches, steady. In Alex’s hand is the sword, the one that Masako had shown her how to wield. Steady steps against an unpredictable opponent, except humans are trained to find patterns even when no patterns are there. There is no grid on the darkness swimming murky in front of her eyes. There is no solid, plowed pattern beneath Alex’s feet. She is brave, but bravery might not be enough.

Or perhaps bravery is irrelevant in the face of her own self-doubt. She registers the wind in the air and then her hand releases the sword and it falls dull on the ground and then she feels the rip across her gut, smells the blood and muscle, and the pain is white and yellow around her eyes like lightning at her head. Her throat gurgles; she can taste the metallic blood in her mouth, and something with it. Her hands are shaking, if they are even still attached. The bull moves and she slides on its horn, and Alex tries to think of something else. She will die a nameless death, no hero’s death, but she will go out thinking of something better than the blood coating her teeth, the fat cells spilling out from her midsection, her intestines ripped like ragged sails caught on a rock a mile out to sea. 

The bull smashes her kneecap and she thinks about Masako’s hands, worn and firm going up her thighs, Masako’s bright brown eyes. Masako’s hands atop hers on the sword (lost, for good, deep in the maze; forgive me). 

There’s just enough time to feel her head crash against the ceiling before she blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied character death, gore


	16. Seashore (garciraki)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mermaid au. obligatory glass eating

The glass arrives in the bed of the sea from everywhere. Onshore, offshore, humans dropping beer bottles in the surf, garbage barges turned over, landfill runoff, carelessness. The smooth surface is halfway to sea glass and sand, the things they already eat, but Alex eats it as it comes. The jagged edges should pierce her throat or stomach, tear a hole in her cheek, but Alex swallows it down, sucks the sand and grime off, so matter-of-factly.

She doesn’t taste different when Masako kisses her afterward, and why should she? Her tailfin taps the ocean floor, and sand rises up. It glitters, and among that, glass--glass that Alex, with her eyes, shouldn’t be able to pick out. She does, the green and clear and brown from the salty water and the murkiness surrounding it. 

It is strange and beautiful, Masako thinks. 

She doesn’t say it out loud, but she pushes her kisses to Alex, warm, soft, mitigating the sharpness. The curve of Alex’s smile is like a perfect bottle bottom, detached from its object. She can tell.


	17. Reflection (tatsuyacest)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> selfcest

Tatsuya doesn’t need to convince himself it’s all in his head. A twitch, a glance, a movement in the periphery of his vision, and when he looks closer his reflection is staring back with the same look and the same position as Tatsuya has. It’s just random impulses in his brain, his bad eye attempting to make up for its near-total lack of functionality. It’s not real.

He falls asleep, his mind whispering that someone is staring out at him from the dark. The blinds are shut, the door firmly locked. Tatsuya does not look at the mirror. If he did, he wouldn’t see the white of someone else’s eye--he screws his own tighter and hunches down in the bed. This is some stupid shit.

It’s when he wakes up, turning around to glance at his reflection, a paranoid impulse that bears a rotten fruit. His reflection is leaning on the surface of the mirror from the other side; it’s not halfway-turned looking over its shoulder. Tatsuya stares; the reflection stares back. Tatsuya breaks first, ignores his heart threatening to fall out of his chest, and picks up his bag to walk toward the door. He ignores the sound of coughing coming from the direction of the closet. 

He’s not prepared for his reflection to break the window from the inside out, but he returns to a shattered mirror and a version of him with everything on the wrong side lying on the bed. An evil twin, but isn’t Tatsuya the evil one?

There are shards of glass stuck to his clothes, the shirt that buttons on the wrong side and the jeans with the backwards logo on the tag. They press into Tatsuya’s bare skin like needles, but Tatsuya only pushes back, closer. If his other self draws blood, then maybe he’s real. Maybe it’s not all his head. Or maybe this is like a movie where a guy beats himself up in the parking lot, but maybe Tatsuya should stop worrying because it feels so damn good.


	18. Out of Breath (haikise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> choking, bruising

The fingers are invisible in front of him, but there all the same. Their marks, purple-black-yellow, a distorted flag of abstract art, mold growing on old bread, streak the skin of Kise’s neck. He brushes makeup over the skin, a curtain of foundation and cover-up, matched to his skin tone exactly for tens of thousands of yen. Leave it to Shougo to be the opposite of a cheap date when it comes to this. 

Kise leaves bites, imprints of his perfect teeth, years’ worth of genetics and braces and retainers, straight in two rows, up Shougo’s chest and down his side, around his collarbones and trailing over the side of his neck. But Shougo holds Kise’s throat closed, gritting his own jaw, clenched overbite and large front teeth (Kise thinks, while the oxygen is still flowing straight into his brain, that he ought to recommend Shougo an orthodontist) and thin lips, eyes narrowing. There is sweat on his brow and he squeezes, a mousetrap’s jaws, a slammed car door down on Kise’s throat. He can’t let air in or out; he becomes conscious of the meaning of the phrase out of breath; his chest is attempting to move and there are spots in his eyes and his throat is crushed, the inward walls of a garbage compactor.

He wants to scream; his voice is silenced. 

Shougo lets go; the pressure’s not there but his throat is burning like he’d just inhaled an entire barbecue; his body pumps air but he still feels as if he can’t grasp it for long enough. There is nothing ahead but black, darker than the bruises on his neck ever get. They’re tender to the touch, the tickle of his makeup brushes, but Kise’s face is practiced enough not to wince.


	19. Abundance (murahimu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stuffing/food kink

The spread of pastries covers the table, leaving scarce few centimeters open to the air. Danishes shining with fine gloss, donuts sparkling with fine sugar, cinnamon buns thick with icing hardened in a shell, tarts crisp and flaking, crumbling just in the air. 

“Muro-chin…” It comes out like a whine.

“Be a good boy, Atsushi,” Tatsuya says, caressing his hair.

Atsushi sighs, flushing air through his nose.

Tatsuya reaches over to the table, pausing his hand over a tart. Then a red velvet cupcake; Atsushi’s face barely twitches. Slowly, Tatsuya draws his hand back, wiggling his finger over a cup of pudding, and there it is. Atsushi’s face almost turns; his eyes glance off to the side. Tatsuya plucks the pudding out from its place on the table, knocking an almond croissant onto the top of a cupcake, the end denting the icing. Atsushi doesn’t wince; perhaps the croissant will be next, flavored extra-sweet from frosting, almond slices falling off with its crumbs.

“Say ‘ah’,” says Tatsuya.

Atsushi obediently opens his mouth, but says nothing. Tatsuya pauses, digging the spoon in. He’s not going to drop any pudding, not for the mess it’ll cause but because every last bit ought to go in Atsushi’s mouth, even if he’s not following instructions perfectly. Tatsuya raises the spoon, and Atsushi eagerly closes his mouth over it and sucks the pudding off the spoon. 

The cup’s only half-gone before Tatsuya’s planned his next three moves, the almond croissant and then the cupcake and then another pudding cup. Atsushi’s chin is soon covered with crumbs, flaky pieces of pastry, icing and cheese stuck to his lips. The food goes faster down his throat, Tatsuya stuffing it into his mouth and then the next piece before he’s finished. 

“Muro-chin, please…”

“We’re not done yet,” says Tatsuya. 

There’s still half a table, two chocolate chip cookies into Atsushi’s mouth; he closes his eyes as he chews, too slowly. His belly bulges at his belt; the buttons on his shirt are straining. Let them pop, before it’s all over.


	20. Numb (kagahimu)

At first, thinking about Tatsuya had hurt like hell. Like clarity in all the confusion, the why and how and all Taiga had thought of Tatsuya--how he still thinks of him, clutching the ring around the neck until the cool metal heats up in his sweaty hand, the memory of Tatsuya’s hand meeting his face, the pain of the bruise that’s no longer there. It still hurts, a little, but it’s like novocaine in his gum now, the sting of the prick and the sensation of receiving the shot, and then a looseness in his jaw as if it’s only sort of there. 

Tatsuya is absent, but he’s still here; he’s the numbness in Taiga’s face and in his thoughts, no longer sharp pricks behind his eyelids. The betrayal of the anger and despair written on Tatsuya’s face as if etched on a stone tablet, over what? Basketball, the differences between them, but it’s not like Taiga asked for this. He wants to be better than Tatsuya; he’s earned it, but it’s not like he asked, specifically, for this, for some gap to form between them, for Tatsuya to feel like he’s being left behind. It changes their relationship, but it doesn’t mean they have to stop loving each other. Brothers and rivals aren’t mutually exclusive, and besides--brothers. They’re not really brothers, and that’s not exactly what Taiga had meant, ever. The ring on his finger, that had meant something else, a flutter in his stomach indistinguishable from hunger. But now, he knows what that is, inappropriate with all the baggage already weighing down their relationship.

They’ve got nothing (there’s a song that follows that with having nothing to lose, and, well, Taiga can’t say that it’s wrong). Nothing but burned-out bridges behind them, a numbness resting behind Taiga’s eyes, and whatever the cyclone of emotions Tatsuya’s feeling. Taiga would listen if Tatsuya just fucking told him, but. 

It’s probably hard to say. And it’s a little comforting that even Tatsuya has trouble with words.


	21. 3:00 AM (kagahimu)

“The surgery will be quick,” the doctor says.

He ties the hospital gown around Tatsuya, and keeps pulling. The strings squeeze his rib cage, and Tatsuya feels his mouth open, an inhuman yell coming forth from his mouth. The doctor, his parents, the nurses, all begin to laugh, but Tatsuya cannot stop the scream from coming, nor can he stop the pain. 

His eye snaps open. His ribs are free; the hospital is gone. He squints in the low light; there’s nothing unusual in the room. All is quiet, the hum of traffic outside and Taiga’s snoring notwithstanding. So he hadn’t screamed aloud; it had only been in the dream. Tatsuya sighs; he’s thirsty. Extracting himself from the covers like spaghetti from a plate, he gets to his feet and makes his way over to the bathroom. 

Four days until the surgery, four days until they try to give him back the sight in his left eye. His phone’s just on the end table; he can call, leave a message, cancel. Deal with his insurance being mad at having to clear all this shit for nothing. There’s no guarantee it’ll work; even if it does work it’s been years since he could see. It could fuck up everything.

It could be great. It could work. Tatsuya hates waiting.

The water does not soothe his throat or his dry mouth, but Tatsuya’s not going to stand at the sink forever. He leaves the empty glass on the counter and trudges back into the bedroom. He pulls hard on the sheet, but Taiga doesn’t seem to notice, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, snores coming with it. Tatsuya sighs again, rolls onto his side, and closes his eyes. He’s so damn tired that it’s not hard to hold back his anxieties with one hand, and let sleep take him back. This time, there are no dreams, tangential to the surgery or otherwise.


	22. Bloodletting (takahana)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vampire au

“Do you ever just see a guy on the subway and think, damn, I could stick those veins?” Kazunari says, licking his lips to illustrate the point in the most redundant way possible.

“No. You’re disgusting,” says Makoto. “Don’t bite people’s arms. The blood just gets everywhere, and it’s a waste.”

Kazunari huffs. “Blood regenerates. You should know that, Mako-chan.”

Makoto rolls his eyes; of course he does. It’s not as if he’s never studied human biology, or never was human himself.

“It’s been a long time, huh?”

“As if a thousand years would make me forget,” says Makoto. “You seem to be forgetting not to overstep your boundaries.”

“My bad,” says Kazunari, stepping closer.

He doesn’t sound sorry at all. Makoto hisses, turns, and snaps his cloak. He is not turning into a bat; nor is he fleeing. He would just rather not deal with Kazunari and the way he talks about flesh right now. As if it’s something new and interesting, rather than something to simply put up with--Makoto was never like that, even as a new vampire. He does regret letting Kazunari in.

“No you don’t!”

And he’s going to plunge a stake through the heart of whatever vampire turned Kazunari, if they haven’t already been talked to death. 


	23. Escape (aokise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aeneid(?) au
> 
> spoiler warnings @ end

Daiki coughs again; his lungs are a bonfire and his eyes are filled with smoke and tears. He can’t see, and he can’t tell where they are. If Ryouta’s still beside him, or if he’s been swallowed by the flames and Daiki’s left clutching an arm attached to nothing. 

“I’m here.”

Ryouta’s beautiful voice is choked and ragged; Daiki can smell his singed hair, even among the flames, the charred city, burning wood structures, burning flesh, seared bodies. Daiki coughs again and squints through the air. The wind pushes flames toward the horizon, smoke up and away, but the gaps in the fire are still few. 

“We should split up,” Ryouta says. “It’ll be easier if we’re taking up less space.”

It’ll be easier for one of them to go the wrong way or get lost in the city that, just a few hours ago, had been so familiar. Every street is now the same, every exit beyond the walls too far. Ryouta heads upwind, and Daiki watches him until the wall of flames close behind him, and he is left with one way out.

* * *

Dead ends, every way he turns. Dead ends, like roots of a weed, burrowing shallow but clamped in the ground, less promising than they seem. He should have gone with Daiki, but his pride and foolish ideas had gotten in the way. Up ahead, what looks like the same crossing at which they parted, Ryouta turning to hide the tears from something other than the smoke and hurrying away. 

A body, half-burnt until the flames, somehow, died away. Cooked flesh hissing, moans and pops--a blue eye, following Ryouta’s moves. Until Ryouta freezes.

He should have gone with Daiki, because then his last image of Daiki would not be this. His mouth is gone; he can’t speak. Does he want to remain here, as long as he can? Does he want a mercy kill, when Ryouta cannot bear to do it? Does he want, does he know at all? His right arm is nothing more than a chicken bone, roasted on a spit and cleared of meat. There is no jaw, no skin on the side of his face. Were it not too much for the flies, they would be here chewing already. Perhaps they are. Daiki’s left hand lifts, shakes. There is vomit dripping down his front, and blood. The eye blinks. Ryouta is frozen, still.

He cannot let Daiki think he’d leave him; he cannot take him. He wants to leave, to block this out; he wants to stay here and let the flames consume the rest of them. Ryouta sinks to the ground and bows his head; he will stay where he is needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> body horror/chara death


	24. Brand (akahimu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> branding of the skin

It hovers on Tatsuya’s skin, like microscoping insects crawling through his veins with feet of ice. Like a tingling, a twitching, clothes made of fabric that snaps against his skin, a burning that he can’t touch, as if his hands are made of magnets repelling the rest of him. Like a brand on his hip, seared by a rod of burning iron, red-hot, the cover of Seijuurou’s eye turning from red to yellow and back. Possession, as if Seijuurou has marked him like a piece of livestock, spoiled a square of leather to assert himself. An ache, of skin that will not regenerate as it had and ought to. 

Seijuurou does not work in blatant redundancies, repetitions; he does things as they’re needed, only as often as they’re needed. He does not need to reinforce with anything other than subtleties, hints, things that could well be Tatsuya’s imagination. A hand that does not clasp Tatsuya’s, or guide his back, but pulls on invisible puppet strings, a thought, a gesture, a firm decision that the two of them are going somewhere and that Tatsuya ought to, too.

He’s not angry; he doesn’t want to rebel. It’s not even something Tatsuya can explain in his own head before he wants to stop thinking about it. Control, yes but he can talk around the word for hours in tight circles that tangle up themselves and obscure the meaning. He’s not looking to explain himself, though; that all falls away, withering in the face of the feeling. The burning of his skin until his vision goes white, the feeling of Seijuurou, right there, a few millimeters away. The heat of his body, his lips pressing together, the blunt ends of his fingernails. 


	25. Shift (garciraki)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied sexual content

It’s hot and sticky and Alex’s shift is sticking to her skin. It’s as if it had been drenched in sap from a tree, cloying and thick and heavy with moisture. The dress she’d worn on top had come off without a catch, but she winces as she starts to peel it off her thigh. Maybe she’ll step in the shower still wearing it; she’s going to have to wash it anyway. Maybe Masako will peel it off of her there. 

“Having trouble?” 

Masako sure as hell isn’t, the buttons on her blouse half-undone and her hair pulled away from her neck. Her bangs are clumped with sweat, but they still rest off her forehead, and the dark stains on her shirt don’t adhere them to her skin. She unhooks her bra with her free hand and the elastic relaxes as it falls away from her body, a shallow groove remains where it had dug in on her skin. 

“You offering to help?”

“Maybe,” says Masako.

She drops her arms, and her shirt and bra fall off and onto the floor. Beads of sweat ride the top of her breasts, her soft nipples. Masako watches Alex’s eyes and smiles, quick and easy.

“Too hot for sex.”

“We’re already sweating.”

Masako wrinkles her nose, but her fingers are grazing the front of Alex’s thighs. Warm, like the outside, like this damn slip. She wedges her fingers under the hem, pushing and running them upward, peeling the slip off more like the skin of a clementine than a band-aid. Masako looks up at Alex; it’s an awkward angle. But her fingers feel good, and the slip’s almost off, and Masako might be going for this anyway. 

Their kiss is brief and sweaty; the slip sits bunched around Alex’s waist.


	26. Choke (kylux)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinky choking

Hux never asks for it. He won’t beg, demand, suggest, imply. It’s easy enough to tell when he wants it, the shift in his eyes and the way he holds his muscles tight, in anticipation of a particular thing. He lifts his head slightly, perhaps a hair of a degree, offering his neck without offering it, stubbornly refusing to admit he does. But he does. 

His thoughts are as closed off as ever, and reading them would be like cheating if he could (not that that’s what the Force does, but it’s a close enough approximation, and really the point is that Ren can’t see what Hux is feeling). There is, sometimes, fear, or maybe that’s anxiety and tension and anger blending together, the undercurrent that flows in Hux’s veins instead of blood (probably). There is want, too, but that comes back to the small gestures. The slight lowering of his eyes, as if to conceal. 

As if he could. But Ren will drag this out as long as he has to, through a hyperlane until they’re out of fuel and the reserves kick in, and even after that. They’ve never run out, running on fumes with each other. Ren flicks a finger; Hux’s throat twitches and his eyes fly back up to Ren’s. Steady, angry. He won’t tell Ren to get on with it; he won’t say he wants it. He’ll wait, dig in his heels, and it’s always Ren who gives in first. 

It makes it even more satisfying to crush his larynx, listen to his pitiful attempts at breathing, see his eyes water and his lips tremble, his hands clutching at his throat (he leaves them at his side until his instincts win over, until he’s nearly blacking out). Imagining that much, clearing his vision and seeing Hux still, composed, before him, Ren frowns.

“We’ll have to fix that.”

“What do you—”

Hux realizes his mistake too late, unable to retract his words and wind them back through his tongue. Ren’s fist clenches; Hux sputters, attempts to look angry and fails. Ren squeezes harder, pulling the strings of tension in the air more taut, the arousal Hux can’t hide rising like water at high tide. 


	27. Headache (kagahimu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoiler warnings at end

Taiga doesn’t know when it begins, only when he begins to notice. The changes are small, empty twigs at the end of branches on winter trees slowly budding, but he can see it when it’s really there. The slight wince at bright lights (Taiga keeps asking if he has a headache, if he needs Tylenol, the answer’s always a denial sharper than a bayonet), the way Tatsuya’s voice softens into a mumble. They don’t buy a new six pack of beer every week or two because Tatsuya drinks less, or not at all, really. He says he’s not sure about the taste anymore when Taiga asks, but the wine and liquor gathers dust in the cabinet, even when they have friends over for a party.

Taiga doesn’t turn the dimmer up on the overhead light when Tatsuya pulls it down another notch, and he doesn’t notice consciously until it really is too dark to read or see. Tatsuya still squints, when the light is just a contained orb, a full moon in the bedroom ceiling sky. He gets up slow, his balance slightly off. That could be tiredness. He could still be half-asleep, but even when he’s half-asleep or drunk off his ass he doesn’t favor one side like this. 

Taiga falls back into an uneasy sleep, and when he wakes up he’s sweating. Tatsuya has the duvet wrapped around him, sealing him inside. His forehead and cheek are cool, but he flinches from the touch and opens his eye.

“You need to see a doctor,” says Taiga.

“There’s something wrong with my head,” says Tatsuya. 

He mumbles that, too, as if he’s incapable of hearing the difference. As if something’s wrong with the vibrations in his jaw, or the perceptiveness of his ear. 

“Should we go to the ER?” says Taiga. 

“No,” says Tatsuya. “Doctor later.”

He goes back to sleep, but Taiga can’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied serious illness


	28. Paranoia (aohimu)

Tatsuya doesn’t like quiet nights. They make things easier for doubt to slink in, a water bug on the outside of the windowsill that slips perfectly under the crack in the screen, feet soundlessly sticking to the walls. Movement in the half-dark, out of the corner of his eye, a dark spot moving against the white paint, until he turns on the light and it runs for the cover, and maybe if he’s lucky he can squash it with a shoe. 

But where there’s one, there’s more. Maybe the first came outside, but perhaps more will follow. Perhaps they were here from the start, and imaginary insects cascade across the walls with every sound of the wind across an old newspaper, every movement of headlights scraping trails across the ceiling from outside. 

Doubt is like a water bug; once it’s in he can’t quite evict it, and he can’t stop it from coming in when the cars outside are few and far between and the construction site’s turned their generator off and the neighbors aren’t throwing a party. Doubt, that Daiki truly wants him. That he won’t someday realize, staying over at Tatsuya’s (when he hates the city and the noise) or on a plane staring out the window, fishing in that lake of his or facing someone on the court, that there is so much more than Tatsuya. That Tatsuya’s too high-maintenance, too insecure, too much to deal with, and also not enough. Other people are more complete, fuller, and have more to give someone like Daiki; why shouldn’t he want them? Other people would come live with him in Cleveland; other people would love him in a way that’s not so selfish. Other people would want him but let him go, instead of sinking bedbug-teeth into him, leaving small scars and itches that don’t enter his conscious mind.

They will enter, eventually. Tatsuya repeats it as a mantra, clenching his shaking jaw, as he wills himself to sleep. 


	29. Invisible (Kise)

He’d started out transparent, unseen. Nothing, unable to stick or leave his mark. Any mark, anyone else’s, would do, and yet he couldn’t. But he’s always been a quick learner, a sponge soaking up information until he’s bloated and can’t do anything except let it all out. It’s a shallow copy, copy by reference not copy by value (he thinks, if he’s learned anything from his sister droning on and on about software engineering). He’s changed the reference, grabbed it from them and stuck it onto him, and it looks so out of place people can’t stop staring at him. The invisible boy, covered in someone else’s wrapping paper. Kicking a soccer ball, doing a flip, jotting things down in handwriting that comes with a flourish. Dancing, singing on the beat, the complicated flows and cadences dropping from his mouth like it’s nothing.

(Or, really, like it’s everything. Because it is, this power; it’s everything because without it Kise is nothing, just invisible.) 

Kuroko calls himself invisible, or words to that effect, but he isn’t. Shadows aren’t invisible; they stand out in the light, stop it and absorb it rather than letting it pass through. Eyes avert, but they slip around rather than through; it’s different, but Kise hasn’t tried explaining it. He doesn’t want to; he’d rather live in a world where no one knows than one where they know but they don’t get it. 

His face is on the billboards and on TV, invisibility brushed over with layers of makeup, a pretty mask, a smile just visible enough to catch the light of people’s projections. He can be whoever they want, ingenue pretty-boy, personality, sparking or sultry or spicy. But he’s part of the landscape, stuck to the ground and unable to move. Not like a shadow, gravitating toward the light.


	30. Itch (furuhana)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drinking, blood

“You’re drunk, Koujirou.”

“Hm?”

Koujirou’s eyes are out of focus, duller than usual. Makoto frowns at him, and Koujirou pretends not to notice, his gaze sliding over to Makoto’s collar and then shifting farther. He leans against the wall; his face is red; his fist is clenched tightly around the plastic cup in his hand. God knows what the fuck is in there, probably one of Hara’s “cocktails” (Makoto uses the term very loosely) made of seven different flavors of cheap rum, gin, cola, and watered-down beer. It smells revolting from a meter away, but then it splashes down the side of the cup when Koujirou bends down to scratch at his ankle. His sock is pushed down; the skin is already red and raised and flaking off. Koujirou scratches it again, and takes another sip of his drink, still bent over. He shudders, or maybe chokes--serves him right.

“It’s delicious,” Koujirou says.

His ankle is bleeding; he continues to scratch as if he doesn’t notice. Flecks of blood are stuck to his fingernails; Makoto grimaces.

“You’re disgusting.”

“What?” says Koujirou.

“Stop scratching yourself. You’re bleeding.”

“I’m not bleeding.”

He draws his hand away, and the leg of his pant falls over the cut. He straightens up, spilling more of the drink on his hand, washing away the blood and replacing it with the pungent stink of alcohol and flavors that should not mix. 

“Why am I still hanging out with you?”

“Why indeed,” says Koujirou. 

His kiss tastes stale and cheap, and Makoto makes sure to let him know that.


	31. Mechanism (kagahimu)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the sequel to ["No Signal"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16153283/chapters/37801874)

Tatsuya has been sitting in the corner of the room. Dusted, treated for rust, antenna and plug pulled out to make sure the rubber is not falling apart, that each moving piece moves the way it should. It’s not a museum, nor is it a mausoleum, a taxidermy. Taiga does not see the flickering lights of Tatsuya’s eyes, hear the steady beat of an artificial pulse that’s really made of thousands of processors working in synchronicity. Tatsuya was real; Tatsuya is real. Even if, even though, he’s no longer alive on this plane. The bits are still there, though Taiga’s no engineer or computer scientist. He’s asked them, and they’ve unscrewed Tatsuya’s face and moved the ribbons and screws and boards about in his head, bitten their lips and plugged him back in to the same results.

Taiga plugs Tatsuya back in on his birthday every year. The little indulgence he allows himself. The wi-fi is always on, always ready; the adapters are always up. Some years Tatsuya beeps, some kind of Morse code written into his BIOS by the manufacturer, about a part Taiga’s replaced several times. Not the one eye that had never worked (a defect; Taiga would never let them throw Tatsuya away for that). Something deep inside, somehow non-essential but essential enough, like the blue ink that’s somehow ran out on the printer when you’ve only been giving it black and white jobs. This time, the beep’s a little different, another pattern, and Taiga has no time to look in the manual or scroll through search result pages on his phone. He just waits--there’s no self-destruct mechanism. Tatsuya was made before that was an option.

Tatsuya’s fingers flex; his eye blinks. Taiga’s breath catches, halfway-exhaled, in his throat, and he coughs. His eyes water; Tatsuya’s hands flex again and one of his feet flops over. His mouth moves soundlessly. A system check, like the ones Taiga has seen so many times.

He could be blank. His drives could be wiped, memory non-functional. 

Tatsuya blinks.

“Hi, Taiga. How long was I out?”


End file.
